Results out, what next?

KANPUR: The exam results of the three Boards that were declared recently have not only decided the fate of lakhs of students but have also reflected the changing trends and the ground realities.
For example, the declaration of results mirrored the choice of the students changing from conventional options like medical and engineering to administrative services, commerce gaining interest among the students and parents alike and similarly, life's challenges instead of becoming a deterrent, proved a turning point for the students enabling them to come out triumphant.
With the good old career options, including medical and teaching, soon to be vanishing from the students' career list, the inclination of meritorious students towards administrative services and other professional courses is what seems to be the impact of technology being pervasive.
Sample this: ICSE class XII girls topper expressed her interest in chartered accountancy, while CBSE class XII topper Akash Singh aspires to be an IAS. Not only Akash, but majority of the UP Board meritorious students including Vikas Jaiswal, Naina Singh and Jayant Tewari are fascinated towards administrative services.
Similarly, barring a few exceptions, other students too wanted to go for professional degrees including BTech in environment science, chartered accountancy or even being astronaut than going for the medical stream.
The students when quipped as to why engineering or administrative services is luring major chunk of the city lads as their first career option, pat comes the reply, "weather you want to go for MBA or civil services later in your career, one always has an upperhand after pursuing BTech degree. Besides fetching you a good job, an engineer always enjoy the luxury of facilities, no matter in Government or private company."
As explains Naina Singh for choosing to go for IAS exam after a BTech degree, "It is perhaps one of the best salaried job soon after BTech degree that tempts most of the career conscious students to go into this line. Medical line in the long run sounds monotonous as you have to study and study for years before you get qualified as a doctor."
When quizzed upon preferring to be a software/hardware engineer to being as a teacher or government job, the career conscious students also opined money and fame to be a pretty good reason for opting for the first.
Another interesting trend that was observed after the declaration of Board exam results was commerce to have been a big gainer with most school toppers coming from the stream.
Apart from Sanjana Mahiwal of St Mary's, others from the stream who topped their respective schools include Abhishek Ghai from VSEC Awadh Puri, Anchal Agarwal DPS Kalyanpur and Diksha Kakkar from Huddard School. Similarly, Akshat Bansal from Puranchandra, Archie Dalmia from Jain International and Bhawna from Subhash Public School topped their respective schools and the three are from commerce.
School principals also feel that the lucrative offers by MNCs, international banks and financing agencies are attracting a large number of students towards commerce. "There is a paradigm shift from science to commerce stream and this trend reflects the demands of the market," said Anshoo Tandon, Principal of Army School.
Another feature that was highlighted during the results was the inclination of the students towards economics and IT in particular. With biology taking a back seat, the two subjects have been more popular amongst the students.
Devika Bose, a computer teacher explains how various factors, other than just marks, contribute to selection of streams. "Most children will get good marks in the class X Boards due to the structure of the exam. However, several considerations go into choosing the stream that will determine the course of one's life. Students are not taking biology, for instance, due to lack of alternate careers. Maybe they get deterred by the long years of study and the tough admission process. Computer on other hand is a subject that requires more of practicals than theory and so fascinates the students," she says.
And if the students like Nishant Awasthi (who secured 9.4 points despite multiple-handicaps), Himanshu Saxena - who overcome his gentic disorder and qualified IIT-JEE and Shivani Singh who scored a good 75 per cent despite her father's death before her board exams - are considered, it has been seen that the life's hardship have proved a turning point for many such children who instead of making these challenges as an excuse have taken these difficulties in their stride and came out successfully.
With the declaration of the Board exam results for all the three Boards, the trend has been observed to be the same every year - girls outperforming their male counterparts. And girls like Urvashi Priyam of St Mary's, Nazia Ishrat from VSEC, Shyam Nagar, Kanchika Mathur from St Josephs, Neha Shukla from Oxford school and Animeha Singh from Army School who have clinched the top positions in the schools have proved that despite battling limitations on innumerable fronts, girls can manage to excel in the board examinations. Quite apparently, the girls taking the lion's share of top rank holders, the trend speaks volume about the gender difference here.